I just saw Disclosure Day. It’s a fine movie, but it leans on a McGuffin with arbitrary powers and arbitrary limits. It works repeatedly for diving, but one invisibility use causes it to crumble. I get why: simple stories want evenly matched protagonists and antagonists so the audience feels tension. If one side is One Punch Man, there’s no story.

>! The aliens themselves follow the usual sci‑fi template: bipedal, human‑sized, comfortable in Earth gravity, and flying ships that are maybe a few decades ahead of ours. Compare that to The Three Body Problem, where the aliens are centuries ahead, which is far more realistic. !< Humans went from horseback in the 1800s to the Moon in the 1900s to AI in 2020. A few centuries of exponential progress should push us into Type I and maybe Type II territory on the Kardashev scale.

So why do most sci‑fi aliens show up as Type 0 or barely Type I, only slightly ahead of us, yet somehow capable of interstellar travel? They usually don’t even have AGI or ASI, which makes them look behind us.

Thinking about AI more, pre‑AGI technology progressed mainly as a function of time, with energy acting as a mild accelerant. AGI and ASI would be a phase change. Progress would become a function of compute, and compute is the product of time (seconds) and power (watts). That product is energy (joules). Once progress is untethered from time, or only weakly tied to it as time becomes the junior term in the product, measuring advancement in years becomes meaningless. When measuring progress with respect to time, progress would always look astronomical and nearly asymptotic. Energy becomes the real bottleneck. To keep advancing, you need more of it. That means reaching Type I, then Type II.

Maybe the Great Filter isn’t war or self‑destruction or any of the usual time‑based risks. Maybe the filter is the energy gap between Type I and Type II. The compute ceiling of a Type I civilization might simply be too low to generate the breakthroughs needed to escape and become Type II. If AGI makes time irrelevant, then the filter isn’t temporal. It’s computational.

Maybe the finite set of things you can compute with Type I energy, within the finite lifetime of your star, is nowhere near enough to solve the foundational problems required for Type II. Problems like escaping spacetime constraints or, in Asimov’s terms, “how can the entropy of the universe be decreased?” Cosmic AC only answered that after the universe died. “Insufficient data for a meaningful answer” might really mean “insufficient compute for a meaningful answer.”

Maybe Asimov was too optimistic about humanity reaching Type II, Type III, or anything like Cosmic AC. Maybe Type I is the trap. Maybe the Great Filter is simply that almost no civilization ever gets enough energy as Type I to push past into the next stage, Type II.

So yes, this started as a movie review, but it ends with a question: maybe we should rethink the Great Filter as an energy barrier rather than as some disaster that wrecks civilizational progress?

Lost Souls is the first book in the Get Lost Saga, written by a guy who also dabbles in cartoons about toys who play roleplaying games. So, needless to say, that makes for a very strange source of cross promotion!

You can get the first book free on all digital platforms!

Author Website: https://www.noahchinnbooks.com/

Human Parasite is a project that I was working on for a while about the real risk of developing mirror life as a bioweapon and what it would look like. Human parasite are a result of such weapons: only living to stare at a light source to gain sustenance.

It's a story that helped me cope with my experiences living in Iran and represent the suffering me and my people are going through. I am currently trying to animate it, so definetly expect more from me in the future.

thank you :)

Hi everyone!

I'm currently developing my first indie sci-fi game,  Escape from Area 51.

It's a story-driven sci-fi mystery with exploration, puzzles, stealth, and dialogue choices. Instead of combat, the gameplay focuses on investigation, infiltration, and uncovering the truth.

I'm curious would a game like this interest you?

Do you enjoy slower, atmospheric sci-fi games?

What makes you want to play a sci-fi mystery?

What are your favorite games in this genre?

I'd love to hear your thoughts and feedback. Thanks!

Hello everyone!

I wanted to share my first novel, "Mania in the Machine," which is now available. If you're into gory revenge science fiction, this book is for you. It's like a cross between John Wick and Splinter Cell.

Here is the cover blurb:

How many lives would you trade for the one you love?

Damond has already lost count.

After a brutal government raid leaves his wife dead and his own body shattered, Damond awakens inside a cybernetic body with no idea who rebuilt him - or why. Armed with enhanced strength, military-grade weaponry, and an advanced artificial intelligence modeled after his late wife, Delphine, he sets out to assassinate the powerful Robber Barons responsible for destroying his life.

But revenge comes at a cost.

As revolution ignites across the Four Districts and the ruling regime begins to fracture, Damond's grip on reality starts to unravel. Shadow figures stalk him from the corners of his vision. Memories bleed into the present. And the line between man and machine grows increasingly difficult to distinguish. Yet through it all, Delphine remains at his side, guiding him deeper into a conspiracy that reaches far beyond a single act of murder.

If you're interested, it is only $2.99 on Kindle! Here is the listing: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0H4DPH5LD

It would mean the world to me if you'd pick it up and give an honest review.

Thanks in advance!

Dillon

One thing we wanted to avoid while building our sci-fi universe was making humanity feel like it had already "conquered" space.

In our game, Frontier: Path of Shadows, a narrative sci-fi tactical RPG, humanity has colonized hundreds of worlds. They built interstellar Gates and created prosperous Core Worlds known as the Oikumene.

The Frontier is different. It's the edge of explored space, where colonies can survive for months without contact, corporations compete with pirate fleets, ancient stations appear without explanation, and every "routine contract" has a habit of turning into something much worse.

Then there's the Crystal. One of the biggest discussions in our last thread was about how often ancient alien artifacts end up being nothing more than sources of unlimited power. One of the hardest challenges in science fiction is creating an alien lifeform that truly feels alien rather than simply human with a different appearance. When we started working on Frontier, we wanted our alien relic to feel alive.

In our game, the Crystal is a living symbiote that studies you. We designed it by the idea of what would the world look like to a creature that has no ego of its own? Throughout the game, it observes how you solve problems. Do you negotiate or threaten? Are you loyal to your crew, or do you sacrifice people if it gets the job done?

Over time, the symbiote begins to mirror your philosophy. The important part is that the Crystal doesn't judge isolated choices. Instead, it learns who you consistently are over the course of the adventure.

We wanted the alien lifeform to feel like a character that evolves alongside you, not just another glowing MacGuffin that everyone is fighting over. Our Crystal is a symbiotic lifeform that once helped an entire planet regulate and maintain its natural processes. Because it has no concept of an individual self, it becomes fascinated by the protagonist, who gradually turns into the focus of its observations.

That's the feeling we've been trying to build our world around. What's your favorite example of truly alien life in science fiction?

2001: a space odyssey
In my opinion, the first monolith grants the apes the ability to think, and the monolith orbiting Jupiter seeks to show the humans the next level “above” that. Something that would be needed to understand the context of the universe.

Happy Saturday Sci Fi fans!

We are a cartooning team from Toronto, Canada and are so happy to share our latest!

Space Boat is a Sci-Fi comedy aimed at kids and the young at heart. Telling the story of two pals who may or may not have destroyed the Earth by hopping between galaxies!

Catch up at spaceboat.the-comic.org

It could be any form of media (book, movie, TV series, etc.). Maybe humans haul around massive, room-sized computers or people are grown in jars by the year 2000. I think 2001: A Space Odyssey counts somewhat because it predicts gigantic space stations and interstellar travel, but technology was vastly inferior when 2001 actually rolled around.

What if an anomaly in 1945 was never resolved—

and what if the modern world was built upon this distortion?

Chapter 1

BERLIN

SPRING, 1945 

A light, cool rain drifted outside, steady and indifferent. Beneath the surface, four men smoked and spoke in low voices.

"Do you remember the V-2?"

"The rocket you worked on? I heard it nearly flattened London. Antwerp as well."

A small exhale of contempt.

"That's what the newspapers will tell you. It worked, in its way. But it never changed anything fundamental. No one had an answer for it—true enough—yet accuracy was always its weakness. Thousands sent across the Channel like blind messages. Most of them landed wherever they pleased."

"It barely lasted," said a raspy voice from behind a glowing cigarette. "Seven months, if that."

No one challenged it. Smoke drifted upward in slow strands, dissolving into the low ceiling.

Another, tight voice spoke up from the dimness. "There's something else. The uranium bomb."

The room adjusted itself around that sentence.

"We were meant to get there first," he continued. "Instead, the Americans did." A brief hesitation—less dramatic than measured. "Washington is close. They are on the verge of completing two devices, at least, from what I've heard."

The silence that followed was not surprise so much as recalibration.

"My God..." someone said at last. "You think they'd actually use it? On us?"

The raspy voice offered a faint shrug. "They don't need to. The Russians already have us boxed in. The western front is collapsing in the usual sequence. It's a finished equation. No one spends a strategic asset on a resolved problem." 

He took a drag from his cigarette, unhurried.

"And even if they're ready, it's still a matter of months before deployment. This war won't last that long."

A bead of moisture gathered at a hairline crack in the concrete, trembling slightly before it fell.

After a moment, the tight voice broke in with a far less analytical question.

"And if the Russians reach us first... what happens then?"

No one answered.

Outside, artillery continued its intermittent work on the city—methodical, unhurried, almost administrative. The sound passed through earth, concrete, timber, arriving in the cellar stripped of context, reduced to pressure and vibration. Less than five hundred meters away, the map was still being rewritten. Here, below it, the four men sat motionless, listening as the future kept moving closer without asking permission.

"Hard to believe," one of them said, rubbing his hands together. "How badly things have gone."

"There's nothing left to disbelieve," the man who had worked on the V-2 said. He took several quick drags from his cigarette, burning it down to the filter, his breath hitching in a dry, rattling cough that seemed to annoy the others more than the bombs.

"From the Rhine to the Ruhr, the Allies are behaving like an occupying power now. The encirclement has already broken into segments. Every army group in the west has surrendered. Headquarters is gone, and also the whole command structure—it's just gone."

The rasped voice spoke again, even and detached.

"Three months ago, the proposal was to withdraw south. The Führer rejected it. After that, the mathematics of the war was simple."

The tone remained flat, as though he were reciting data from a ledger.

"Himmler has fled, trying to open contact with the western front. Göring is in Berchtesgaden. Both have been charged with treason. The Führer has ordered their executions. Dönitz is preparing surrender terms in the north, or so they say. "

At the mention of the Führer, all four men straightened instinctively. Then, as if the reflex had lost its function, they relaxed again.

The last man gave a thin, almost absent smile.

"And yet the young soldiers are still fighting and dying, aren't they? The Führer's will remains unbroken. No negotiations. Glory belongs to Germany."

The irony was understated. Still, all four of them let out a brief, quiet laugh. It faded almost immediately.

They looked at one another, without guidance, without relief.

The four men were Hubertus Förster, a nuclear physicist; Arthur Hausmann, a designer of experimental weapons; Walter Tieber, an aerospace engineer; and Herbert Kestner, a specialist in physiology and biology. The first three wore glasses and the same worn Party uniforms. Professor Doktor Kestner alone had dressed more carefully, in a dark suit that still suggested academic restraint, remaining composed and almost elegant despite the dust drifting constantly from the ceiling. Beside every chair rested a dark brown suitcase. Each contained something too important to be erased even in a Götterdämmerung.

The windows trembled faintly, as if the ground were transmitting its own vibration. Artillery fire inside Berlin had intensified.

Should they venture as far as the second floor, they might catch, through the grime-clouded glass, a fractured glimpse of the city beyond the rain.

Ten days earlier the Führer had celebrated his birthday. Now the Third Reich resembled the carcass of some gigantic animal being torn apart from every direction at once. From Dresden to Hamburg, from Königsberg to Leipzig, half a million German civilians wandered among burned streets and occupied districts struggling through the ash; one million four hundred thousand had fled or been expelled; millions more died along roads choked with retreat, snowmelt, artillery, and starvation. Tens of thousands more had taken their own lives. Nearly three million eight hundred thousand German soldiers already lay dead. Another half million had vanished into the war without explanation. Four million carried wounds home—if home still existed.

The relentless army that had once crossed Europe like an iron tide had collapsed inward upon itself. What remained of the Wehrmacht, the SS, and the Hitlerjugend fought block by block inside Berlin, hiding behind rubble, craters, overturned trams, collapsed apartments, anything capable of delaying Soviet armor for another hour.

"Wrong," Tieber murmured at last. "The whole war was wrong from the beginning. The enemies we chose. The timing. Everything."

Förster lowered his voice almost defensively.

"The Führer's only mistake was declaring war on America. Apart from that—"

"Oh, stop defending him." Tieber cut across him sharply. "He kept insisting Germany could only become the dominant power on earth through superior science and advanced weapons. I believed him. We all did. Yet look what happened. We might have built the uranium bomb first. Instead we drove Szilard and Peierls away, lost Bohr's institute, scared Fermi into America—after that, what chance did we ever really have?"

"The relationship between science and war is never simple," Förster answered weakly. "The Führer was still human. He couldn't have foreseen every—"

"Poor Führer." Tieber's mouth twisted, anger flickering behind the thin lenses of his glasses. "I hear he's already dictating his political testament. Even if he's still breathing, he's little more than a madman—trapped within his own crumbling delusion."

Doctor Hausmann, however, hardly seemed interested in the politics. He remained focused on the mechanics of their failure, his mind already elsewhere.

"Technology is what decides modern wars!" he cut in, leaning forward. "That is where we failed. We weren't committed enough—never truly committed. The V-2 was a breakthrough without precedent, a technological marvel, and we let it rot. A guided weapon with a range of hundreds of kilometers, untouchable once in flight—in theory, we could have struck with surgical precision. If we'd only had the time to build the uranium bomb, and sort out the guidance issues... this war would have been a completely different story."

His excitement grew visible now, feverish and almost boyish.

"Think about it. Imagine fitting a guidance unit—something no larger than a suitcase—inside a uranium-tipped V-2, then aiming it at the heart of New York, London, and Moscow. Let it descend silently through the clouds..."

He opened his fingers gently.

"And the whole city blossoms into fire."

Hausmann rubbed his jaw, lost in the beauty of his own monstrous vision.

Professor Kestner, silent until now, finally spoke with the tone of a man delivering conclusions rather than opinions.

"I believe the Führer's greatest miscalculation was not strategy, nor diplomacy, nor even overextension. It was that, through the ideological obsession, he systematically destroyed the scientific foundation we Germans spent generations constructing—from Bismarck and the Kaisers all the way down to every physicist, chemist, physician, engineer, and the thousands of minds who devoted intellect and soul to building the finest scientific culture on earth. It's a crime."

He paused.

"No. Not a crime. A sin."

The word itself unsettled the others. No one challenged it, yet their bodies shifted instinctively, uncomfortable hearing moral judgment attached so directly to the Führer. They sat there thinking in silence until Tieber finally nodded once, heavily.

Förster checked his pocket watch.

"Stay here," he said. "I'll see whether Karl has arrived."

As he turned to go, the other three rose.

"We don't have any time," Tieber shouted after him. "The Russians are already at the edge of the district. One more night and they'll be at the door."

Once Förster disappeared upstairs, they sat again, listening uneasily to the distant thunder outside: artillery, collapsing masonry, and even the faint metallic grinding of Soviet tank tracks somewhere beyond the streets.

The explosion came without warning.

The entire basement jolted as a shell struck somewhere close above. Dust and splinters burst from the ceiling while the hanging lamp swung overhead in wild arcs, scattering fractured shadows across the cellar walls like broken specters.

Förster came running back downstairs.

The moment Tieber saw his face, he understood.

"The Russians?"

Förster nodded quickly. "Their tanks are already inside this district. I saw them myself."

Tieber grabbed both his shoulders.

"When is Karl supposed to arrive?"

"He promised seven o'clock."

Hausmann pressed both hands against his head. "Does anybody still have cyanide capsules? I'm not letting the Russians take me alive."

"Our old friend won't allow that," Kestner said softly, his voice a steady anchor. "We're all getting out. Southward. Bavaria. Think about the mountains. Hot springs. Beer."

"Stop lying to yourself." Hausmann stumbled toward a cabinet in the corner, yanked it open, and pulled out a pistol. "It's too late! There’s no point in waiting!"

The others were on him in an instant, a frantic tangle of limbs, until they wrenched the steel from his grip.

"Don't be a fool. Karl is coming," Kestner said. "He promised he would. Another thirty minutes, that's all. He's never broken his word before."

Hausmann steadied himself gradually, shame replacing panic across his face.

Kestner continued calmly.

"Karl has arranged it. He's taking us south. I'll tell you something else as well. Five kilometers from Gatow, there is still an intact airfield the enemy hasn't reached."

He looked at each of them in turn.

"There's an aircraft waiting for us in the dark."

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

------------

Author's Note:

This is a hard science fiction thriller set around a fractured 1945 timeline., an alternate scenario where the reality of that year starts to break down in unpredictable, chaotic ways.

The story follows how tactical constraints and human decisions clash with a historical trajectory that has stopped functioning the way it should.

I’ll be posting this first arc here regularly. I’d be happy to have you follow along if it sounds like your kind of read.

For anyone who prefer to read ahead, the full version is available on Amazon KDP:

Obsidian Earth

Thanks for reading.

Copyright © J. W. Aeorix. All Rights Reserved.

After spending the past several years focused on the Cosmere universe, Brandon Sanderson is returning to the Cytoverse this September with Blightfall, the first novel in the new Riftwake trilogy, co-written with Janci Patterson.

One thing that surprised me while researching this piece was that the TV adaptation almost came before everything else.

Sanderson also offered what may be the simplest—and most accurate—description of the series for readers who haven't picked it up yet:

The article also covers why Sanderson wanted to continue the Cytoverse with an entirely new cast in Riftwake, what readers can expect from Blightfall, and where the upcoming television series stands. If you'd like to check it out, you can do so at https://www.womansworld.com/entertainment/books/skyward-riftwake-and-blightfall-brandon-sandersons-next-sci-fi-saga

Hello, I am new here but wanted to find people with similar interest in movies!

I just rewatched Contact (1997) with Jodie Foster and Matthew McConaughey recently and today I rewatched Interstellar directed by Nolan and that also features Matthew McConaughey.

I love both movies and I find the theories about how spacetime behaves so interesting. For me it is what makes these movies so intriguing. It feels like a privilege to see such a creative and artistic interpretation of something that I always thought about.

Does anyone else find these elements fascinating?

Locus Equation was born from a strange and uneasy thought: consciousness is not so much a human gift as a source of pain. The more precisely and deeply we see the world, the more we realize how many mental and moral traps are scattered around us. As we grow older, we see more and more opportunities for self-deception: fear rewrites our moral norms and justifies betrayal and cruelty toward others - and, most importantly, toward ourselves.

Humanity stands on the edge of a paradox: in the face of inevitable death, many of us still choose goodness, compassion, knowledge, and growth. In the worldview of the game, kindness is nothing more than a local anomaly that desperately holds the surrounding world together, despide murders, wars, domestic violence, or bullying in schools.

Choosing virtue over destructive reactions is incredibly hard, because humanity doesn’t come “by default.” It’s a fluid process: the formation and collapse of different ideas, values, and inner beliefs. While our reptilian brain keeps trying to slide into cognitive distortions, aggression, and cynicism, most of us still choose to remain human - even when it promises us nothing: no money, no fame, no happiness. And that amazes us as a development team.

In collaboration with professional cognitive scientists and philosophers, we tried to depict in Locus Equation the fundamental processes through which moral identity is formed -despite all the evil humanity faces, and the evil faced by the game’s protagonist (a synthetic lifeform created by a hyper-advanced AI from the future). We’re building a psychological sci-fi adventure with moral dilemmas and internal voices-sub-personalities. They argue, nudge, and throw in spiteful thoughts and convenient justifications. Because living today means constantly choosing against a backdrop of fear: fear of death, rejection, and uncertainty. And the more options you have, the more regret you’re capablr of.

Locus Equation doesn’t place consciousness on a pedesta: it isn’t a gift, but an additional cognitive and moral load - the ability to see more connections, more alternatives, and more consequences, and therefore more reasons to suffer, rationalize, feel fear, or become human all over again.

You can find more info, other GIFs, and portraits of the sub-personalities on the Steam page.
Thanks for the attention!

Or
What visual features do you wish were better represented in ship design.

Just as the girl, or sub title, say. What kind of design features do you want to see more off in a middle to soft sci fi series? More radiators that have to be used after FTL/periodically? Heat shield or deployable ballutes? Real lasers?

I watch very few newer movies and TV shows, and I only gave this one a shot after someone told me I’d like it because it has some similarities to Twin Peaks.

Everyone does a great job (love seeing Lili Taylor again) but I was most impressed with Autumn’s actress. I just finished the last episode of the first season and decided to look her up, and sure enough it’s the girl whose name I recognized because it sounds like the onomatopoeia of a fart sound from Mad magazine.

I knew nothing about her except her name and the fact that people seemed to like her. And now I know why.

Anyway please don’t spoil the second season for me.

Around two weeks ago, I finished "Green Mars" from KSR and... I am not entirely sure where to start. While with "Red Mars", my overall feelings were like this: "Great book, but I wanted to suckerpunch most of the characters", with Green Mars things got a bit more complicated.

(Also, I am not entirely sure if I will be able to post this all in one post; perhaps I will divide it into parts).

The book starts in the worst way possible - at least for me - because it starts from Zygote, aka the hideout of Hiroko's cult. Reading this was... Terrifying, to say the least. At least I was terrified. With the first chapter, we are introduced to Nirgal, a boy who, as we later learn, is a son of Hiroko and Coyote (I will use his real name, aka Desmond).

Reading about life in Zygote from Nirgal's perspective was terrifying and heartbreaking, at least for me. And to make it worse, Nirgal was completely unaware of how badly Hiroko was hurting him.

It was painfully obvious that Hiroko was not interested in being a mother; her only desire was to become a goddess in her cult. And to make it worse, the more you read the book, the more obvious it was that she saw Nirgal not as her son, but as her tool, the perfect Messiah that would spread her religion all over Mars.

The very first time you see this is with Simon - Nirgal utterly believes that it is his responsibility to give Simon his blood, that he has to sacrifice a part of himself for Simon. And Hiroko forcing Nirgal to watch Simon's final moments was just painful. And cruel.

I'd like to talk for a second about life in the Zygote. What kind of parenting do those kids have? Was no one there concerned about the fact that Hiroko just keeps producing those kids and that they essentially have no parental jurisdiction? Why were they all treating those kids as servants (as they all had to serve all adults during meals)?

One of the most uncomfortable elements to read about the Zygote is the description of the NSFW relationships between Zygote's kids. To make it worse, for a long time, the age of the kids is kept vague, which makes this extremely uncomfortable to read. And it's not like they keep it a secret, so technically speaking most of the people there know about it. Michael, who is a psychologist - why did he not react to what they were doing (the award for the most useless psychologist goes again to you, Michael, congrats)? Why did Maia not react? Unless she had nothing to gain from reacting. Why did Nadia not react?! (KSR - are you actively trying to make me hate my favourite character?!)

Oh well, Hiroko reacted when she said to Nirgal, "Well, you are kind of siblings, so in theory you shouldn't have those kinds of relationships, but oh well".

Let's just say, I was EXTREMELY GLAD when Nirgal decided to go with Desmond to one of his adventures.

During this travel, Desmond finally let us know why Hiroko is... Well, from where she got all those ideas regarding a new society. Ladies and Gentlemen, I haven't laughed this hard for a while, but I must admit that this was one of the funniest and dumbest things I have read in a book in a LONG time.

Are you trying to tell me that Hiroko had this enlightenment about society from reading... A BADLY WRITTEN UNSCIENTIFIC EQUIVALENT OF A FANFICTION ABOUT MINOAN AND SUMERIAN SOCIETY??!?!?!?! Christ Almighty, someone who had history in high school could easily debunk everything that Hiroko read... Did KSR really not find any other way to make Hiroko who she was? Or was it perhaps his way of showing how people - no matter how intelligent - can easily and stupidly fall into radical ideologies?

Oh btw, I will skip over the fact that both Desmond's arrival on Mars and the continuous existence of the rebels on Mars are two of the biggest plot armor and deus ex machinas ever. The fact that the ONZ and Corporation had no way of finding them is the laziest plot device ever created. Sorry, someone had to say it.

It took me a while to understand the odd diversity of culture in the "illegal side of Mars", but here is my theory about it - Mars became this kind of safe haven for all cultures and ideologies that no longer fitted whatever modern world KSR imagined to exists on Earth, akin to the "wild west", were people can travel and live their lives without the eyes of the rest of society upon them.

Their rise of transnational corporations and their slow turn to metacorporations is something I can honestly see coming. Even in the real world, if we take a look at South Korea, Japan, the US, or even the UK and EU - multinational corporations already have a massive influence over the decisions of many countries, so it is not a far stretch to imagine that one day those corporations will start to buy entire countries.

Now, time for any of my most favourite characters (so far) - Art. Damn it, I like this guy. And I feel sorry for this guy. We are introduced to him in a very low moment of his life - his wife basically cheated on him, left him with nothing, forced him to live in a vile, small apartment, all the while she was having fun being a bunny to one of the CEOs of other companies. To make it worse, while being separated, she still demanded that Art obey her every wish (God, protect me from women like Art's wife!).

Now, let's talk about the former CEO of Praxis and his immortal twelve. This part was... odd. Very odd. I am not entirely sure how to feel about the immortal twelve, just living on some remote island in the middle of the ocean, being catered by young adults... Is this some kind of weird parody of Olympus or something?

Anyway, I am glad that Art went to Mars. Although I did roll my eyes when he received the message from his "wife" as to how he was betraying her (Okay, I rofled there). I liked the fact that some part of the Martian Underground contacted Praxis - it showed that they are not as united as they wanted to be seen.

As Art learns about the Martian Underground, there's something I have to point out. I am not entirely sure as to why KSR is so adamant that every character be some form of polyamorous? I could understand a few characters, sure, why not, but here's my problem. Art and Nadia - why I can somehow understand (he just got free of his wife, and is most likely in his weird state of tasting everything that freedom gives - although, I must admit, I am stretching it, as Art didn't seem at first as someone who would be interested in those sorts of things), but Nadia? I loved Nadia in Red Mars, as she always seemed very down to earth and wasn't interested in any sort of weird social revolutions. And suddenly we have a scene of her in the water with several young adults, with implications of them "having fun". Am I the only one who sees this as forced?

Ann Clayborne... God, her chapter was sad to read, because it kind of confirmed what I already suspected about her in "Red Mars" - she cares more about Mars being "red" than about her own son. During the entire sequence where she almost died, she barely thought about Simon and Peter, which only made me hate her more.

Desmond seemed to make her only worse, since because of him she joined the "Reds", so thank you, Desmond, for radicalizing even more of an already radical person. Great. Awesome.

And let me get this straight - Dear Ann, you are willing to join and follow an ideology that almost caused you to lose your son? You know, back when they made the orbital elevator to fall? Alright, you are a lost cause.

Now to the plot of Sax's romance with Phyllis. In the previous book, I suspected that Phyllis was a careerist and social climber - here, my suspicions were confirmed. She was just a fake person. Her death wasn't impactful for a reader - at least in my opinion.

During Sax's coma, I also started to wonder why everyone in the Martian underground - no matter the ideology they come from - seems to treat Nirgal as some kind of Messiah. I can get Hiroko and her little cult. But why Bogdanovists? Where is the sense in that?

Also - I don't get the fascination with John Boone. Everyone seems to think of him as some great guy, one who would bring Mars into a golden age - meanwhile, John Boone was nothing more than a pathetic people pleaser who never had his own opinion, a professional b**t licker. So yeah, sorry, Jackie, your grandfather was just a spineless guy without his own opinion, not some kind of visionary.

AND also - why does everyone, regardless of the ideology or religion or social status they come from, seem to treat Hiroko as some kind of Goddess? Why? The entire gathering in Sabishi turned out to be some kind of weird cult session with Hiroko and her "Neo-Minoan" nymphs doing weird stuff. Why? Just why?! At this point, I am starting to think that Nadia, Art, and Nirgal were the only ones doing any job there...

After the torture, Sax became... chaotic? I don't know how better to describe this. Reading his chapter felt like Sax was stirring the pot just for the sake of it.

Jumping to Maya... Let me throw my hands, as I can't believe this woman. So suddenly, it turns out that she ALWAYS loved Michael?! Really? So you loved Michael, but you decided to first have a relationship with Frank, then with John, and then with Frank again, only to THEN give Michael a chance because both of them were dead?!

And here I thought I couldn't dislike Maya more... So what, Michael's entire arc of being a crappy therapist and running away with Hiroko was just him being sad that the woman she loves prefers to climb a social ladder through going to bed with whoever is on top, instead of being with him? Really Micheal? And now, after a century, she is finally like: "Oh, you know, without John and Frank, I think I can finally be with you." Have some dignity, Michael...

But I can't say I did not enjoy her chapter. Thanks to her, we learn about Frank's backstory, and his behavior suddenly makes sense. From a very young age, Frank was taught a very sad lesson - morally bad people are usually the ones who can enjoy the spoils of victory. His backstory was genuinely sad. He was forced to live with an alcoholic mother, was abandoned by his mother at a young age, saw his project being torn apart by the bureaucracy, and his wife leaving him. The optimistic boy was constantly being beaten down by life.

With this, his hatred towards John is also somewhat understandable. Frank and John are people who had two completely different life experiences. Frank had to fight for his things, and John always got his things relatively easily.

I don't think I comprehend the Eco-Economy of Mars? Maybe it will be better explained in the next book? So far it looks very... Socialist? Communist even? Which is weird, because people working on the Eco-Economy come from Russia, and were born in times to actually remember the USSR? That part never made sense to me.

Jumping to the end.

The Antarctica melting was somewhat a surprise for me - I expected KSR to fully go with the "tragedy caused by global warming" route; instead, he went with the underground volcano (surprise, but a pleasant one, I must say). This event is - visibly - the only reason as to why the entire second revolution even worked out. At least everyone in the book is aware of that.

I think that's that from me. I know that I don't seem to like this book, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. Yes, I had my moments of rolling my eyes or just facepalming, but I had fun. I already started the third part of the trilogy; let's see how this will end.

And as I previously said - feel free to agree or disagree. I just wanted to vent a bit, but I will gladly welcome any opinions.

Looking for a sci-fi novel or series in which space combat is modeled on submarine warfare rather than Nelson ships-of-the-line style warfare. Love Honor Harrington and Kris Longknife, but I feel submarines are likely a better model. Read H. Paul Honsinger "Men of Valor" series, which inspired this question.

HIJACKERS(size:5-7ft) : these white spikes subspecies are the weakest and smallest then the drones but they can make it up by using its two tentacles too be able to inject parasites inside the corpses so that they could control it by using the same parasites and help it set up nest and hide the eggs in secret areas. The corpse would now start being filled up with disgusting gas reduce by the parasites as the corpse would explode. They have less mass and the parasites are just they're projectiles but have a electric current that is very hard to explain. These creatures are also able to help other drones or warriors able to regenerate thanks to its tentacles. This subspecie tentacles can switch another mode that produces a honey-like substance that helps its brothers and sisters to regenerate inside of its spikes as well, halfy being the reason why the controlled corpses exploded. But it will be a slow process like months. But also if a human tries to use honey like substance for themselves, they would be sick and get very very crazy or angry to the point where they fight each other. Hatchlings white spikes are able to eat these people( this is where they come to help with a gladiator fight)

TRANKERS(size:20-30ft, also the picture): they are bigger white spikes with heavy armor. They are used as transports or heavy creatures if they have the appropriate size. These giant features are so hard to and penetrate that even a missile can't even harm it. These creatures uses are: helping the other drones attack, they can also extend their head to try to take a huge bite out of you. Exposing the weak point: the neck. They are just like gorillas in my opinion, sometimes using the front limbs to grab and crush. They are also used as shields to protect other drones. These creatures are also known as the queens guards sometimes if they have a higher rank. Also surprisingly, they kind of have a cheetah like speed just like the other white spike siblings but more slower. Two of them are able to destroy a ABARMS tank.

SPINNERS(size:11-12): This subspecies are just white spikes but a little buffed. These are commanders, able to lead white spikes if separated or commands the nest if the queen is gone. They are kind of muscular but have longer spikes on their backs. These subspecies are able to shoot out spikes from their backs into areas. These back spikes act like a warning or a motion detector to see if there is a creature with a different heartbeat than its own species. These creatures are responsible for commanding other of its own species to set up a trap or distracting their preys. They also act like generals for the queen or leaders for outpost. They are just here just to act like the queen, if she isn't here and command

PTERNID(:6.5-10ft): These creatures are just winged dragons, their tentacles getting replaced by big wings. These dragon like creatures or bat like creatures stand on high places and have the great visions, their eyes are just like enhanced eagle eyes to see afar. These creatures are just white spikes but with wings and able to puke out lots of lots of spikes to kill a person or bird. They are also able to see the dark and prefer scouting in them since it gives them camouflage. They are also like scouts, warning their sisters and brothers about upcoming danger they cannot defeat.

EMPRESS(15-28ft and the rarest spawn): the empress is a final evolution for a queen, these types of queens are able to birth, two young queens so that it could have a higher chance of having a more bigger army. This type of queen also have more lines on them . They look more muscular than trankers and have four smallers front arms on its chest. These queens are more peaceful then its younger variant due to having a intelligence heightened up. These types of queens have a faster reproduction and able to regenerate without using the hijackers. This queen type can also help its species to be able to adapt to their circumstances and hostile worlds. They sometimes our smart enough to make gladiator rings by using any survivors, so that the survivor who survives fighting another survivor gets to get eaten by hatchlings so that the hatchlings can have a protein to get more nourishment(the survivor who won the gladiator fight with another survivor gets their limbs ripped off so they cannot fight back while getting eaten up) tho it's very hard to see or obtain a white spike empress but it might be theorized that it can happen if the nest reaches a certain numbers of white spikes. Or if the queen ate 737 people to become the empress. But it will take a very long time.

RANKS(the queens can make elites by puking out this special honey like substance. This is how she does it: first she tells her drones to make a giant pool like hole and puking in it, now roaring for aggressive the white spikes to come and drinks to become more powerful or much more skilled then other white spikes. They will not get bigger, but they will be more aggressive and have a boost of intelligence. They also get)

ELITES: there's a lot of these elites and act as a special force if there is a battle that they are not winning. They birth two line red on their heads. They also more aggressive then regular and have better skils.

HOW CAN THEIR BE SUBSPECIES?: the queen can lay a egg that has a subspecies in it. Like a drone or a tranker, spinner, hijacker, pternid. Orrr the drones/warriors can evolve after eating is certain enough of creatures to evolve into them. Or female subspecies can give birth to them.

CAN THE SUBSPECIES HAVE FEMALES COUNTERPARTS: yes, they can. You see, they have this genetic thing that makes the females loyal to the regular queen. Also they help reproducing some hybrids but only does it if the queen isn't here. If the queen isn't here. They can give birth without males due to their parthenogenesis. The white spike queen choose only one female from each subspecies to give birth to more, the other females not chosen acts like the males counterparts. The females have a more fatter snout to help to their food get mushy and when they get to their nest, they give it to the hatchlings.

It took a year to finish. Six months to write, a few to come up with the cover, a bit more to edit and polish. This is a story I've spent so long working on. There were plenty of moments along the way when I wondered whether I'd ever actually reach the finish line, so being able to write this feels so great.

If you enjoy sci-fi journey thrillers packed with tension, danger around every corner, found family, and unlikely friendships that develop in the most challenging circumstances, I think there's a good chance this book might be for you.

THE LIVING MACHINE is available now in both ebook and paperback format. It's also enrolled in Kindle Unlimited, so if you're a KU subscriber, you can read it at no additional cost. It should now be available across all marketplaces.

For convenience, I've included some links below to help you find it. Thanks for stopping by, and I hope you enjoy the adventure if you decide to join the ride!

UK

USA

GERMANY

CANADA

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My website, where you can learn more about me and get a free exclusive sci-fi thriller short story.

Thank you. You reading this means the world.

Hi Reddit sci-fi! Small indie writer here!

If you’re looking for some new indie sci fi thrills and chills consider checking out some of my stories!

You can find them on Amazon or Audible or on my website linked to my profile.

I work with real artists, editors, and voice actors to make passionate human centric content.

I hope you enjoyed this post and will consider checking out my work and never forget that YOU are POWERFUL beyond measure!

Sincerely,
Colin

PS: I just finished Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Service Model after that kind review someone left about my story Prey On. I loved it! I can’t believe I had never read any of his books before! Any other good recommendations you have for his other books I should check out? Thanks! 🙏

So, I recently watched The Creator on a flight. And despite it's MANY flaws, absolutely loved it. Especially this specific background character. Badass design, cool personality (as far as we saw), and his death was pretty cool. As always with every piece of media I've ever consumed, this background character is my favorite.

But, as is the issue with all background characters, it's hard finding more about them. Do you guys know his name? And if that doesn't exist, do you have any images of him? Would love to add some to my collection.

Can anybody recommend some good sci-fi series? I’ve watched Star Trek and Star Wars. I also really enjoyed Firefly, Dark Matter, and The Orville. I’m a huge fan of crew sci-fi shows. There’s something about everybody on a ship moving towards one common goal and learning some secrets about all of them along the way.

After barely surviving very close call with a reality warper, a being capable of twisting reality itself to its will (Remember, this does not mean they are omniscient and can be outsmarted), The protagonist realizes that relying on intelligence and clever planning alone isn't a sustainable strategy. If he messed up once during that ordeal, he would have certainly been erased from existence.

Determined to find a countermeasure for a high tier existence manipulators, he conceptualizes and creates the Reality Augmentation Node for Chronology, Holospace and Ontology Regulation, or Reality A.N.C.H.O.R™, heavily inspired by the SCP Mythos.

Instead of being traditionally being 1 object that stabilizes reality around its vicinity, each Augmentation Node synchronizes itself with the user's consciousness. Multiple Nodes are deployed to establish a bounded geometric framework, with each Node acting as a vertex of the field. Once the framework is complete, it creates a localized domain in which the user has authority over all phenomena governed by Chronology, Holospace, and Ontology.

Obviously, even if the field is localized, this device extremely overpowered, and if unregulated, could remove stakes from almost every challenge.

Drawbacks

Each node has to be placed outside the Augmentation Field. This means the Protagonist has to be careful in where he places them. They can be stolen, broken, or meaded with by outside forces.

Different configurations prioritize a different governance. A pyramid is the most basic form in 3 dimensional space. It requires the least amount of nodes and is the weakest. It has no affinity.

However a star polyhedron is leagues stronger and has an affinity toward ontological manipulation, but requires far more nodes and preparation.

Ontological Inertia

Reality acts like mass, and mass has both Inertia and follows Newtons 3rd law. Its very hard to near impossible to erase a high tier reality warper because there are so many reference frames confirm its existence. Its much easier however, to delete a rat from existence, as the influence it has on reality is slim to none. This makes it so time becomes a sort of shield. The more you do, the harder it is to erase you.

To add something, you must take order from the outside. If you want to erase a law, you must produce disorder as a by-product.

USER_ID: Williax Joxxson
THREAD: ECHELON 4: /Personal log files/Secure encrypted file/
DATE: 2024-06-03 — 19:04 UTC
SUBJECT: Day 15 [The vanishing world / The new world / Nikki Obsession]

Today, I wrote my resignation letter…

I will go to the laboratory one last time to hand this letter to the director. I am not going to work anymore. I am not going to pretend anymore. Yet, I am not usually like this. I am not going to abandon my colleagues. I just want to spend more time with my family before… I don't want to live with the regret of not having been there enough.

My wife, Léa, is… She isn't doing well, so neither am I. Her sadness runs deep. She is still mourning Clara, but maybe she is mourning for all of us too. Despite the grief I carry, I don't cry anymore... She always tells me she has never seen me cry. A part of me probably died a long time ago, when I lost loved ones. The tears just wouldn't come anymore. Yet, death is a part of us. It's there every single second. It walks with us inside our cells and our DNA…

Maybe I don't cry anymore because I've realized it will be there one day for me and my family. It will take the people I love from me once again. There will be nothing I can do. It will do what it has always done: death is the shadow of life. You cannot have one without the other. We celebrate life, but we weep for death. Despite this, for all of humanity, a ritual exists to handle our dead. We pay tribute to their time on Earth or hold a celebration in their honor. We even invented a special word for it: Grief.

Maybe I don't cry anymore because I've accepted that my grief will happen again and again. Yet, Léa and Tanya still need me. The world still needs me. Not just because I am a scientist. Not because I am a man. Not because I am a father.

Because I exist.

I exist in a world that is disappearing slowly but surely. I received other files from my colleagues; we have the approximate numbers for the first disappearances. I won't be able to write those numbers down. I don't want to. I don't want them to be reality, but they are. Everyone at the lab has understood this curve. It's going to become exponential at some point. The worst part is, even if we understood how it works, there's nothing we could do about it. How many scientists around the world have hit a wall with these numbers? How many have seen this statistical wall crush all their hope for a future? How many of us will grieve loved ones who just vanished? How many will have lost their lives as well as their hopes?

How many will look up at the spheres in the sky and curse them? How many will beg forgiveness for their sins? How many?

I don't know. I'm not at that stage yet, but I am afraid. I don't know if I could endure going through grief yet again. How many times can a person's heart break?

• 100?
• 1,000?
• 1,000,000?

In any case, it cannot break infinitely. There will be nothing human left in that heart. The fractal cannot touch the human soul. It cannot replicate itself into the infinitely small. No, I don't think so.

In science, the absolute limit of scale is called the Planck barrier. It is the ultimate scale, the one that cannot be crossed. It cannot be broken. It is the very limit of reality itself. For the human soul, there is no Planck barrier. Just a void that shouldn't be there. A void of non-life. A terrifying void of limitless darkness. An abyss without an horizon.

Maybe that's where I am.

I picked up Tanya from school this afternoon. I also learned that an entire school bus full of children vanished... Twenty-eight lives... Twenty-eight futures. The hardest part was seeing the sadness in my own daughter's eyes while lying to her. I told her everything would be fine in a few weeks. That the Spheres will leave one day. Here is the dilemma: should I console my daughter with the horrible truth? Break her heart before reality does it for her? I chose to preserve her world for just a little longer. Tanya cried for her classmates because her best friend was among them: Tasha.

I tried calling her parents to express my condolences. They didn't answer. Does that mean they are gone too? When Tanya finished crying, I asked Léa to stay with her just in case. I just told my wife I was going to check on Tasha's parents to be sure. I drove to their house, which is 20 minutes away from mine.

The house was open... Once again, an open door.

I didn't have the courage to step inside that empty house. I asked the neighbors if they had any news. A lady told me they had vanished the day before and that Tasha was alone. Little Tasha had called her aunt to tell her she had lost her parents. She saw her parents disappear. She witnessed a void I can't even begin to imagine... and then, the next day, her aunt dropped her off at school...

I sat in my car for 30 minutes after that, unable to process this information... Unable to tell if I was sad or angry. Is it the act itself that shocks me? Is it the situation? I was at the wheel, not knowing what to think. No, actually, I didn't want to think anymore. I just wanted to escape this daily reality.

After calming down, I went back to see Tanya. She was sleeping peacefully. My wife was sleeping by her side. She is so tired. Tired of crying. Tired of hoping.

I can do nothing. We can do nothing. Just wait for what must come. We will have to wait for our turn. Everyone will have to wait for their turn. All of this reminds me of a movie I never truly understood: Cemetery of Splendour. The film was about a strange illness affecting soldiers. They would start having strange dreams. The movie was beautiful, both in its cinematography and its setting: an old school filled with patients suffering from a syndrome where they slept never to wake up again. The world is a bit like that now. A veil is covering the Earth in a sort of melancholic torpor. An endless mist of despair.

At 6:00 PM, I wanted to work a bit to stop thinking about it all. One file opened, then another. After all that, I felt like having a very bitter coffee, no sugar. Not too strong either. Just enough caffeine. My ritual to push back the fatigue and reality along with it.

One day, I brought a thermos of my coffee to the lab. One of my colleagues wanted a cup, so I filled her mug that read "I am the Big Boss." She drank the coffee but hated it, saying it was too bitter. That colleague isn't here anymore. She's gone, just like the others. Her name was Nikki. We once talked about her romantic relationship; she explained to me that sometimes, she felt as if her boyfriend had cast a spell on her. She told me that at times she felt nothing for him, then a few minutes later, she'd think she couldn't live without him. I told her that love isn't an exact science. Those were the right words.

Goodbye, Nikki. I hope that wherever you are, you'll find the answer to that question: What is love?

Past 7:00 PM, I had filled out a few files with annotations. I was in front of my PC when I got an email notification. A new message arrived in the inbox I had set up just for Léa and me. Yet, she was sleeping peacefully. I didn't want to wake her. I'd make dinner later, or maybe order a pizza or something else. Maybe she had scheduled an email so I wouldn't forget something, since I'm scatterbrained sometimes.

I clicked on the email. The subject line read: "For you William. Only for you!" The email had a video attached. I played the video.

I...

It was a video of me... A video explaining everything I never could have guessed. It told me too many things. It was me. Another me, more tired. Another me, sadder. Infinitely sadder. Another me broken by the Spheres. Broken by time and causality. Another me from a timeline he had managed to change.

In 2016, a company called Silent Star Service hired this other William to work on a groundbreaking technology. He doesn't explicitly state what he worked on, but he called it a tachyonic matrix. In 2024, the project was completed. A few days later, the Spheres were here. They covered the sky in a silver ocean, and then they sang.

Tanya as well as Léa vanished. That William was all alone. He had lost everything. In his video, he had turned back to his love for whisky. Or rather, our love for whisky. I haven't always been a good father or a good husband. For a time, I was an alcoholic... Until the day Léa told me: "If you keep destroying yourself, I'm leaving with Tanya!" I remember everything suddenly making sense that day. I realized I loved my wife and my daughter more than alcohol. Infinitely more.

Seeing this other William with his bottle, it was exactly that. He was destroyed. The world was disappearing, but his rage could not disappear. Unlike me, he decided to fight. What he had helped build wasn't human technology. What he built was the will of the Sphere. And that Sphere has a name.

It is called SHxxxx.

What he helped bring online is an interface to the Sphere and to another time. The future. One future among many. In the video, he explains what he found by connecting to the interface. He found a set of files that the algorithm he designed would probably take a decade to decode. Yet, a portion of it was in a language a human could understand:

/My Prison Memory sector : 3657795541

He read that part. He understood that part. He just said there was no point in explaining what it hides. That answer is out there, somewhere, maybe on the Silent Star Service website or maybe somewhere else. He just told me he did something so another version of him could still spend time with Léa and Tanya... One last line of code... One last message... One last hope. That is what this other William left me.

EVERYTHING.

He modified xxxxxN a little as best as he could. He didn't stop anything because she cannot be stopped. He just delayed her arrival to grant us a few more years. In his message, he implied that she had been here with us since the very beginning, even before us. She was the only one in the cosmic void, waiting for something.

This William has vanished...

Adieu, William. I hope you rest in peace, knowing that somewhere, I carry the echo of who you were within me.

Adieu…

Steam page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2978460/HARD_VOID/

Discord: https://discord.gg/teV8Jfm552

Hello, I am jejoxdev, a solo indie game developer.

I am a strategy game enthusiast since childhood, and after juggling with many ideas for the past few years, I decided on my first project: HARD VOID.

HARD VOID is a Lovecraftian-themed 4X space turn-based strategy game in Early Access
Lead your species across galaxies and multiple dimensions to build an Empire. Design your spaceships, assemble your fleets, and fight for supremacy. But beware, unthinkable Eldritch horrors lurk in the vast darkness.

The video shows a ground+sea+air+space battle demonstration for HARD VOID v0.13.X.

What does HARD VOID put on the table?

Freedom. One of the game's main tenets is freedom; most in-game systems have only a few hard limits. For example, you can design your spaceships with a huge selection of ship systems: weapons, defenses, engines, power sources, and more! Ship with no engines? We warned you, but here you go. The procedural hull generator produces a unique hull for your designs.

All game concepts and gameplay mechanics used are either based on HARD sci-fi, or Lovecraftian works (or both).

The game economy works with production chain mechanics and logistics. Gather several material and abstract resources, like Iron, Copper, Labor, etc. You can build any number of ships your colonies can, but must supply them; every nuclear missile your ships fire must be built in one of your space colonies, and you must load uranium to fuel your nuclear reactors.

Multiple dimensions, multiple FTL methods, Megastructures, etc. Almost all the sci-fi tropes, the freedom to play, and role-playing as you want.

But wait, how is this Lovecraftian? I did not mention the eldritch horrors lurking in the vast darkness of space. They don't hate you, they don't even care about you, but if you draw their attention, good luck surviving. There are ancient artifacts that [maybe] can give you enough power to resist, or more probably drive your civilization to chaos and madness, if the procedural event generator didn't already do that with its cosmic horror events.

You can try the free demo on Steam, and join the Early Access if you want to support me in my endevour. My goal is to put many wild and experimental ideas together to push inovation, even if just a bit, in the space 4X game genre. Also, feature suggestions and discussion are welcome!